Oooh. I'd love to see your face tank Sera build, and Varric/scout build if you have the time. I have a dwarven boy I'm planning to turn into a tanky tempest.
Why certainly.
(Also, both of these builds are capable of being used on nightmare difficulty with all trials on. Though if you're letting the AI play the scout build, then it may/will require some micro-management, especially if you want to abuse grenades. Which you will. Because grenades are amazing.)
Face-Tank Sera (Needs party support)
Tempest Tree: Flask of Frost (Frostbite), Flaskmaster, Ride the Storm, Flask of Lightning (Quicksilver), Flask of Fire (Unquenchable Flames), Fury of the Storm, Killer's Alchemy
Double Daggers Tree: Twin Fangs (Unyielding Fangs), Parry (Effortless Riposte), Flank Attack, Bloodied Prey, Unforgiving Chain, Spinning Blades (Flurry)
Sabotage Tree: Poisoned Weapons (Leeching Poison), Fighting Dirty, Hook and Tackle (It Beats Walking)
Skill Wheel : Flask of Frost (Preferred), Flask of Lightning, Flask of Fire, Twin Fangs, Parry, Poisoned Weapons (Preferred), Hook and Tackle, Spinning Blades
Total Points Needed: 24
Accessories: Pendant: Malika's Guard (Necessary and amazing.)
Belt: Belt of Life, or Enhanced Belt of Urgency (If you're not using it on someone else.)
Rings: Any, though I'd recommend Poisoned Weapon rings, or alternatively, Superb Critical Chance/Damage rings if you have them available.
Weapons: 2 Hakkon's Mercy (16 Dragon Scales, 3 Great Bear Hide)
Armour: Refined Prowler Mail (11 Craggy Skin / Anything that gives %Ranged Defense, 5 Dales Loden Wool / Anything that gives % Magic Defense)
Prowler Coat Arms (8 Dales Loden Wool, 4 Craggy Skin)
Prowler Armour Legs (8 Craggy Skin, 4 Dales Loden Wool)
Helmet: Overlord Helm (4 Any third or fourth tier metal, 10 Dales Loden Wool)
Recommended Masterworks: Fade-Touched Everite (Heal 25% damage over 10 seconds), Fade-Touched Bloodstone, Fade-Touched Dawnstone (Walking Fortress)
The idea behind the armour is to bulk up Sera's ranged and magic defense as high as possible. Melee defense is taken care of by Flask of Frost and Parry. As for the weapons, I like Hakkon's Mercy because the passive "chill" ability that all of the Hakkon weapons have is amazing, and my choice of using dragon scales to craft them will provide Sera with a nice boost to both her cunning as well as her dex, giving her enough crit chance, crit damage and %att to still be a contender on the battlefield. If you find that her crit chance is too low for your liking, then you can always craft the daggers with mats that exclusively give cunning, but I personally find you lose too much crit damage/%att from the dex you're giving up if you do that. You could aaaaalso use different weapons all together, but imo the passive chill bonus (not to mention the 16% boost to ranged defense that you get from cunning) is just too nice to pass up on a DD rogue, especially one that's supposed to be fighting up close and personal with its enemies, AND that will be using Flask of Frost so much. The only problem you might run into is if Sera catches the attention of an enemy DD rogue, but I find that if you try to keep an active barrier on her with one of your mages when those pesky rascals are around, then that particular situation will be so rare that you may not even run into it at all during the course of a single play through.
If you have any questions about it feel free to ask.
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Scout Varric (Can be played solo)
Artificer Tree: Spike Trap (Pyrotechnics), Opportunity Knocks, Set Them Up, Elemental Mines, And Take Them Down, Fallback Plan (Clear the Board), Tricks of the Trade
Archery Tree: Death From Above, Leaping Shot (Shot From the Shadows)
Sabotage Tree: Poisoned Weapons, Fighting Dirty, Explosive Toxin, Toxic Cloud (Lost in the Mist), Caltrops, Looked Like it Hurt
Subterfuge Tree: Stealth (Clinging Shadows), Easy to Miss, Knockout Powder (Rude Awakening), Evasion, Evade (Shadow Step)
Skill Wheel: Knockout Powder (Preferred), Leaping Shot, Stealth, Toxic Cloud, Fallback Plan, Evade, Spike Trap, Elemental Mines
Total Points Needed: 27
Accessories: Pendant: Party: Amulet of Accord, or Kitty's Collar if you're not using it on another character
Solo: Cooldown Amulet
Belt: Any Grenades Belt
Rings: Superb Ring of Sundering, or again Superb Crit rings if they're available.
Weapon: For Varric: Bianca (Craft her upgrades for high crit chance and dexterity)
For the Inquisitor: Any bow with at least 30% - 40% crit chance (depending on your other gear), then dex, %Att, or crit damage for the rest
Armour: Usual rogue damage gear, snoufleur skin, etc etc (if you want me to elaborate just ask, but it should be pretty straight forward). This may be a scout build, but you still want to be doing some decent damage with your traps and grenades.
Helmet: Solo: Mask of the Grand Duchess
Party: Superior Skirmisher Hat crafted with Dex materials
Recommended Masterworks: Fade-Touched Snowfleur Skin (1% health per hit) Fade-Touched Everite or Dawnstone work in a pinch if you can't find Snowfleur skin, but their healing mechanics are conditional on getting hit in the first place. What you need is a way to regenerate health, but you *don't* want to have to put yourself in harm's way for it to happen. OR if you're playing on PC and can spawn whatever you want, then you could be really cheap and craft armour with the Fade-Touched Honeycomb masterwork, and just turn the "Rub Some Dirt On It" trial off so you can use potions to restore health.
I know that building for maximum damage output with your skills seems a bit contrary to the whole "scout" thing, but bear with me. The idea of this build, if you're playing it with a party, is to run ahead of the rest of your party in stealth, throw out a bunch of grenades or traps or whatever, then retreat and let your team run in after you've already made a mess and done a fair bit of damage with your Knockout Powder, Confusion Grenades, Spike Traps, Elemental Mines or whatever. After that you can run around and do your thing from the background, causing chaos from the shadows. If you're playing solo, you can run toward a bunch of enemies in Stealth, use a Bee grenade, Spike Trap, or whatever you have time for in the three seconds after you've attacked (thanks to the Clinging Shadows upgrade), and finish up with a Knockout Powder, then use Leaping Shot to go back into Stealth and hide while you wait for Leaping Shot's CD to run out so you repeat the cycle, which (thanks to Opportunity Knocks) shoooooould happen right about the time that your enemies receive a "Rude Awakening". And if the enemy is immune to sleep, then upgraded Confusion Grenades and/or Bees are freakin' amazing early game. Then in the late game, you'll have access to your other traps and stuff and your grenades should be fully upgraded at that point and yeah, you'll have a lot of other options. lol
If you're wondering why I bothered to include Fallback Plan and Poison Mist at all (though you're probably not wondering about PM cuz a lot of people like it, but I hate it so ima justify its use here for my own sake), it's because I usually hate using the "Elusive" mechanic, but for a scout I find that it's appropriate for the role-playing aspect of it. Also it does help in a pinch, like if you used one too many skills/grenades before Leaping Shotting away. As for Fallback Plan, it's nice to have just in case. Although since the AI doesn't actually use detonator abilities like FP or WB by itself as far as I know, if you're letting it run this build, then you could swap it out for something else. Maybe Shadow Strike with the Long Shadows upgrade for the stamina recovery.
Again, if you have any questions feel free to ask.
By the way, the scout build really only needs Leaping Shot, the Opportunity Knocks passive, Knockout Powder, and Stealth to shine (also bee grenades for enemies that are immune to sleep), so as long as you have those this build can function as it's supposed to as early as level 10. Everything after that is really just gravy. :3
Oh, don't forget to upgrade the Skyhold Garden ASAP too so you can farm plants and stuff more easily to help with restocking your grenades.
Also in case you're wondering, the reason there are no focus abilities is because I don't like them, so I don't make room for them in any of my builds. You can if you want, but I don't.